Less than whole
by Levana Fay
Summary: Megabyte's thoughts on revenge and Hex immediately after 'My Two Bobs'.


Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, settings, etc. Just this little story.

Rating: K+

Summary: Megabyte's thoughts on revenge and Hex immediately after 'My Two Bobs'.

A.N.: This is just a little something that I wrote to try and help me through my writers block.

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Megabyte looked out over mainframe from the pinnacle vid-windows, watching as the inhabitants that hadn't heeded Phong's warnings to stay at home fled the streets, screaming in fear. His announcement of the hunt was a diversionary tactic, but it would serve more than just that purpose. He intended to do exactly as he had said; he would take revenge on the sprites that had foiled his plans too many times, those who had sent him to the web in what he assumed to be their idea of poetic justice. He wasn't going to actually hunt them down though.

Why bother when he could eliminate the system from right here, in the war room. Bob had told him where the gateway command really was, he would escape to the supercomputer while the sprites he detested were running around after his aliases unaware that they were about to offline. He'd overload the core, not even a system reboot would save them.

He'd thought about initiating a countdown, so they would be forced to watch as their last nano's disappeared, but he knew that that would give them time to thwart his plan, and that was what he didn't want. He was however designing it so Mouse would realise what was happening but have no time to save herself or her friends, as he had had no time to save himself from the web portal. 'Just another double cross' indeed.

His victory was near at hand, the super computer was recovering slowly from Daemon's infection and the Guardians were as good as regular sprites without their key tools. He should be basking in pride and anticipation for his future, and most of him was, but another smaller part felt... hollow.

He had always stayed aloof from his troops, his minions. He preferred the company of his own mind and voice. Even in the web, lost in a corrosive atmosphere, injured and surrounded by hostile creatures he had kept himself busy, and he had never felt alone. That feeling had suddenly hit him; or rather _she_ had, just before the web surfer had offered to take him to Mainframe.

He had been one of the lucky few that had avoided Daemons' infection. He'd taken refuge from the corrupting atmosphere of the web in the thickest asteroid he could find, clad in the remains of the web creature that had dragged him through the portal. He'd been overlooked really. Then the User had once again saved him from deletion by giving him an Upgrade. At first he had hated what he had become, there was just something degrading about masquerading as someone else, but the rewards of being incognito had altered that perspective quickly. He had visited a system where he had hoped to establish a foothold, clad in his new form as the Guardian he hated, but instead he had found the entire system was infected by Daemon.

Once the countdown to deletion had started he hadn't been afraid of being the last entity still online, he'd been angry that his revenge was being taken from him. The knowledge that all of the planning and the suffering he had endured had been for nothing was almost too much to accept. Then the cure had been delivered and he couldn't believe his eyes.

Hexadecimal's masks had descended upon the infected and passed through them, saving the net and everyone in it from certain deletion. Although he hadn't been infected, one of the masks had gone to him. Her most wicked face. She had recognised him; she had seen through his code deep disguise and looked straight at _him_. While the other masks seemed to be just that, the red eyes of the one before him glowed with life. He knew that this fragment of her had sought him out. The mask had sped at him and passed into him. Her last thoughts and feelings, even her power, had swept over him and in that instant he had felt... whole. Her insane laughter had echoed clearly in his ears as her presence within him had vanished, leaving him with a profound sense of loss.

Had he been sorry to see her fragment? No, she had infected the entire net, how could he be sorry for that? It was an accomplishment he could only dream of, and dream he did. They had never been particularly close either so the loneliness didn't make sense. She'd had more reasons than most of mainframe's inhabitants to want him deleted and she'd had the power to do it, but she never had. He recalled the thoughts and feelings that she had left him with and after much consideration he had realised that she had loved him. It was a different love to what she had felt for Bob, which both sickened him and had inspired his little charade for Dot.

The ties that bound sprites together meant nothing to him; most viruses weren't programmed to feel or to understand things like love, romance or family. He had never loved his sister, he'd found her to be an annoyance at best and a liability at worst, but he hadn't hated her either. She was just... there. The word sister wasn't exactly applicable either; though he had preferred it over trying to explain what they really were to each other and had laughed at the strange parody of 'siblings' that they made. But now she was gone and he could no longer deny it. He had lost the other half of his being.

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Author's Note: He means it literally. Hex and Megabyte were two halves of the same virus. This is NOT an MB/Hex fic.


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